Today, representation in media is a large point of contention with many people. Nowhere is it more clear than in video games where representation is not only shown, but also needed. For me I’ve gotten used to being able to identify with the character of the game no matter. The earliest memory I have is playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game for the Gameboy Color. You play as a male protagonist going around the world collecting medals from eight Club Masters and go on to defeat the four Grand Masters. It played out similar to the main series games but now uses the trading cards. Me being the naïve self that I was misgendered the character and thought that they were a female from the start. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned about the Japan only sequel that you had the choice between a male and female character.

Pokémon early on is known for not including a female character in the main series games. It wasn’t until the release of Pokémon Crystal for the Gameboy Color that a female was established as a choice for players in the series. While this is before my entrance into the series, it is still something to wonder about. The game developers wanted to include a female character from the beginning. Plans for Green, the female character were in development alongside the characters of Red and Blue. Concept art even exists for of all three facing off against each other. Yet it took them four years to include a female character into their games. Furthermore, it took until 2013 with the release of Pokémon X and Y for players to finally customize their character. While options were limited in terms of skin tones, and clothing, expression aside from the cookie cutter character was available for the player.

Pokémon is just an example of a game series that lacks representation. Many mainstream games are lacking representation of any sort. Communities such as the LGBTQ and religious communities are some examples of groups that don’t get much representation within games. For games that do have LGBTQ representation, at times they can rely on stereotypes for their character. While it may be harmful to use stereotypes Shaw states “LGBTQ characters’ gender and sexuality in the series are often conveyed via stereotypical signifiers (e.g., men acting effeminately or women acting masculine). This should not be read as bad in and of itself because as film scholar Richard Dyer discusses, sexuality is difficult to represent outside of those performative codes.⁹ What are often critiqued as negative stereotypes are performances of identity that are a part of some LGBTQ peoples’ lives (i.e., there are gay men who perform effeminately; there are women who identify as butch). Dismissing them as unrealistic or bad dismisses people who are often marginalized within LGBTQ communities.” (How to Play Video Games 111 – 112) As we discussed in class, with the use of stereotypes but the purpose of the stereotype and why it is used. When developers represent a group they have to be careful about the implications of using harmful stereotypes. A way around this is to not rely on stereotypes and base the character off of someone in real life.

Aside from representation, we talked about identity. I think representation and identity go a bit hand and hand. If you are represented in a game, then you can more identify with a character. That isn’t to say that you can’t identify with a character. I’ve identified with male characters in video games and place myself in their shoes for the sake of the story. Hopefully by having more representation in video games, players are able to better have parts of their identity show up in games.